By Helen Pitt
More than 400 protesters gathered at Moore Park on Sunday at a rally calling for a parliamentary inquiry to stop the felling of six more Anzac Parade fig trees slated for removal from 6am Monday.
Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore spoke along with Aboriginal heritage experts and environmentalists, calling for the eastern suburbs light rail route to be redirected to save 31 Moreton Bay figs along Anzac Parade. Buses have been redirected from the current bus route, and the trees due to be chainsawed have been cordoned off with wire fencing in readiness for their removal this week.
Protestors rally to save the trees on Anzac Parade in Moore Park that are scheduled to be destroyed to make way for the light rail corridor in Sydney. Credit: Janie Barrett
"It's not Anzac Parade without those trees," Matt Thistlewaite, member for Kingsford-Smith told the crowd. More than 1200 trees will be affected by the light rail's current route; of these 900 are estimated to be significant and around 600 are to be removed, according to the group Saving Sydney's Trees.
"The government's revegetation program does little to address the massive urban canopy deficit," the group said in a statement.
Thistlewaite said he had called on both NSW Premier Mike Baird and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to intervene to halt the light rail project to save not only the trees but also ancient Aboriginal artefacts which have been found along the route near Randwick Racecourse. Several speakers told the gathering that the Aboriginal spearheads and knife blades that had been unearthed during the light rail construction were trading tools and artefacts "as significant as the pyramids".
Organisers asked Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to save the trees, which are in his electoral seat of Wentworth, and allow for more community consultation on the light rail route. Several quoted a Sydney Morning Herald opinion piece which the Prime Minister wrote in 2010, critical of the then Kenneally state government, in which he called the area the "great green lungs of our city" and in need of preservation to retain Governor Lachlan Macquarie's vision for Sydney.
"All around Centennial Park ... there is more development with more families who need to have access to these great green lungs of our city. Do we really need more carparks for the SCG?...The wonder is Centennial and Moore parks have survived at all," Turnbull wrote back in 2010.